Shabestari and the Socratic Way

The intellectual project of religious new-thinkers (especially Iranian religious new-thinkers) has been sympathetically explained in various ways.[1] A common approach is to regard religious new-thinking as a project similar to the intellectual project of the Enlightenment thinkers of eighteenth-century Europe, such as Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Kant, and others. These Enlightenment intellectuals all sought, in different ways, liberty, progress, tolerance, and the rule of law, and opposed the monopoly of the Church and the entanglement of religion and politics. According to this explanation, religious new-thinkers are the same religious "intellectuals" who are not fundamentally different from the Enlightenment intellectuals; if there is a difference, it lies only in the difference between the twentieth/twenty-first-century Iranian-Islamic context and the eighteenth-century Christian European context, and also in the fact that Iranian religious intellectuals now hold a more critical view of the capacities of human reason and the aspirations and dreams of modernity arising from the Enlightenment.

Explaining religious new-thinking based on the model of Enlightenment intellectualism has led to extensive debates over whether the intellectual project of religious new-thinkers can be considered a project similar to that of the Enlightenment intellectuals. Critics of this explanation say that the Enlightenment intellectuals were "free from religion" and even opposed to it, whereas Iranian religious new-thinkers are not "free from religion" but are defenders of religion. Therefore, one cannot resort to the model of Enlightenment intellectualism to explain the intellectual project of religious new-thinkers. I believe convincing responses have been given to such criticisms. The responses have emphasized that neither were the Enlightenment intellectuals entirely "free from religion" or opposed to all forms of religiosity,[2] nor is the business of intellectualism fundamentally defined by freedom from religion or opposition to it.[3]

Although religious new-thinkers can be considered religious intellectuals without any difficulty (whether conceptual or historical) and explained based on the intellectual tradition (with its Enlightenment lineage), another alternative (and complementary) explanation is also possible: that religious new-thinkers have adopted a Socratic way. In this essay, I will try to explain and defend this alternative explanation somewhat. In what follows, I will demonstrate the Socratic way of religious new-thinkers by focusing on one of the most prominent representatives of the religious new-thinking tradition in Iran, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (born 1936, Shabestar, now in East Azerbaijan). In this essay, I will first speak a little about Socrates and the Socratic way, and then I will outline what I believe amounts to Shabestari's Socratic way.

• The Socratic Way

2.1 Socrates

Socrates is known above all for his critical dialogues. These dialogues were written by his student Plato and have fortunately survived the ravages of time and reached us. Socrates himself wrote nothing, or if he did, it has not reached us. Everything that remains of Socrates is from the pen of others. Among these, the most important surviving work about him is undoubtedly the Socratic dialogues penned by Plato. Specialists in ancient Greek philosophy disagree on how much of the views expressed in these dialogues goes back to Socrates himself and how much consists of views that Plato, so to speak, put into Socrates' mouth. But whatever Socrates' views may be, these scholars agree on Socrates' dialogue-centered, critical disposition and way. Socrates, who lived five centuries before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, has been called the saint of philosophers and the martyr of philosophers. He has been called a saint because his life shows someone who lived only for truth and not for his personal or group interests—and is a saint not thus? He is called a martyr because he was unjustly made to drink the cup of hemlock by Athenian democracy. Even if we do not call him a saint and martyr, however, he is undoubtedly one of the founders of Western philosophy. But his importance goes beyond philosophy. He has received the kind of reverence generally accorded to the founders of religions, such as Christ and the Buddha.[4]

2.2 The Socratic Method and Ethos

The Socratic method is a skeptical one. Socrates’ aim is to call into question matters that have been taken for granted through dialogue with his interlocutor. In these dialogues, whenever the interlocutor presents an idea or definition, Socrates brings forth a counterexample and at the very least compels his interlocutor to reflect on their opinion or definition. Nevertheless, despite his devastating skeptical critiques, Socrates does not claim to know. He questions his interlocutor in order to learn something, but the interlocutor’s answer does not satisfy him. He is not a wise sage but a seeker of knowledge, and he does not acquire this knowledge by stockpiling information but by pruning it.[5] It is for this reason that each of the Socratic dialogues ends in not-knowing—a not-knowing that results from the critique of the illusion of knowing (compound ignorance), a not-knowing that is conscious, or simple ignorance.

Yet what is more important than the Socratic method is the Socratic disposition. Socrates is a critic of the Sophists, although he himself is accused of sophistry by his opponents. The Sophists were not in search of truth; they constructed truth in order to use it as a means of earning a living. They were in the business of trading in truth, not in the pursuit of truth even at the cost of their livelihood. Socrates, moreover, sacrifices not only his livelihood but also his life. In the Apology, Socrates shows no sign of expedient retreat to save his life. This is strange for someone who himself confesses that he knows nothing. If you know nothing, then over what matter do you stand so insistently and refuse to yield? He knows nothing, but this nothing is not void; rather, it seems akin to “non-existence” in its mystical sense, from which all things are born but which itself is not a thing. Socratic doubt is a generative and meaningful nothing, not a hollow and empty nothingness.

Another important point regarding the Socratic method and disposition is Socrates’ relationship with religion. Socrates seems to see himself as bearing a mission from the god of the temple at Delphi, Apollo, the god of truth, poetry, and music. In the Apology, Socrates speaks of the judgment of the Delphic oracle concerning himself. This judgment is that Socrates is the wisest man in Greece. In Socrates’ view, this judgment is divine, meaning that it is in fact Apollo who speaks through the mouth of the Delphic oracle. However, according to Socrates’ interpretation, this judgment does not mean that Socrates knows many things, but only that he knows that he knows nothing. But this is not the only interpretation Socrates makes of the divine judgment of the Delphic oracle. Socrates’ other interpretation is that he has a mission to teach philosophy to the Greeks so that they too may become wise, that is, become aware of the fact that they merely have the illusion of wisdom. In other words, Socrates’ interpretation of this mission is that he has a duty to show people, through critical discussion, how much they are afflicted with compound ignorance—that is, they do not know but think they know.

However, the important point here is that despite the divine mission Socrates felt upon his shoulders, the content of Socratic philosophy remained entirely secular. The Socratic dialogues show that, although Socrates believed in the god of the Delphic temple and it was as if that very god had roused Socrates to teach philosophy, in Socrates’ view, philosophy was a secular affair and relied solely on human reason, not on divine inspiration. Yet such a secular philosophical enterprise was approved by the gods, because the path to happiness lay precisely through this critical examination. You remember Socrates’ famous saying: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”[6]

Now, it is time to turn to Shabestari and see what of the Socratic way and manner can be found in him, as one of the prominent representatives of the tradition of Iranian religious intellectualism. But before that, I must say that what I mean by “the Socratic way and manner” is both the Socratic method and his disposition.

• Shabestari’s Socratic Way and Manner

The first resemblance between Shabestari and Socrates lies in their orality. Shabestari, and indeed most religious reformists, have spoken far more than they have written, and many of their writings are the transcribed form of their lectures or dialogues. Hence, religious reformists, like Socrates, are oral thinkers. This method communicates better with a general audience, although according to critics of this method, orality generally diminishes precision of speech.

Another resemblance is that Shabestari and most religious reformists are thinkers of the people and among the people. Just as Socrates conversed with the youth in the streets and squares, to the extent that he was ultimately brought to an ill-fated trial on charges of corrupting the city's youth, Shabestari and most religious reformists are also thinkers of the people and among the people. Shabestari is "of the people" and not from the class of rulers, nobles, and clerics. He abandoned politics very early, and even during the time he donned the cloak of politics, he was a representative of the people in parliament; that is, he came from the elective branch of government, not the appointive one. Nevertheless, he very soon cast off even this cloak.

Shabestari's self-willed divestment can also be seen as another sign of this very matter. He was so much of the people that he cast to the wind even the "scholarly turban and robes" and took on the garb of the common people of the street and bazaar. Shabestari is not only of the people but for the people. He is not an academic thinker, in the conventional sense of the word. The academic "thinker" in the conventional sense is a modern-day instance of the ancient Sophist. The academic "thinker" treads softly, coming and going quietly so that the ruling power does not take offense at him. The academic "thinker" researches only safe subjects, even if he has studied and taught in a provocative field like theology or philosophy. The academic "thinker" publishes his name alongside his student's research in a scientific-research article and thus, without toil or bribery, becomes a full professor and enjoys the salary and benefits of full professorship. The academic "thinker" in its conventional sense makes a living from "truth" and is therefore the Sophist of the modern era. Shabestari, however, is not a reclusive scholar, is not a Sophist, and for this reason, in the winds of the Ahmadinejad government's favor, he was sent into forced political retirement and has borne the cross of the accusation of corrupting the minds of the youth and disrespecting the government's God, just like Socrates, for many years.

Shabestari also offers an analytical, agnostic account of religious faith in a Socratic manner. In a readable dialogue that can be considered among the classics of Shabestari's works, referring to the famous book by an anonymous 14th-century English mystic, he considers faith to be "flying in the clouds of unknowing." In Shabestari's view, we do not know what God is or even whether He exists at all. We can only push aside the veils of the illusion of knowledge with a perpetually renewing faith, and at the same time, never cease from seeking.[7]

Shabestari, like Socrates, does not bring God into the content of his philosophy. His thinking in this sense is secular, meaning it relies on pure human reason in analyzing matters. Yet, again in a Socratic manner, Shabestari seems to have a religious motivation in rethinking religion. He considers religious faith in the sense of "perpetual seeking" to be something beneficial, if not necessary, for humanity.[8] He sees the revival of religion as the revival of religious faith. His philosophy is secular in content but sacred in motivation, and thus his thinking follows a Socratic way and manner.[9]

But perhaps the most important resemblance between the Socratic way and the way of Shabestari and other religious reformists is that both went to war against the dominant beliefs of their time. Socrates did not believe in the god of the Athenians. Socrates believed that gods do not lie and are free from moral vices, whereas the gods of the Athenians were vengeful, quarrelsome, jealous, and narrow-minded. In the trial held against Socrates, one of the charges was disrespecting the god of the city-state of Athens. Shabestari, too, is a disbeliever in the god of the ruling power. A god who is the representative of the ruling Guardian Jurist in the heavens, a ruler who demands repentance from his critics in order to grant them their basic rights as a favor and a bribe—a repentance that was formerly directed to God and not His representative! Shabestari has written extensively in critique of such a god, crystallized in the official reading of religion.[10]

The essence of Shabestari’s critique of the official reading of religion can be found in these remarkable words of Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972), the Polish-born American Jewish philosopher and theologian—and this shows how much the sincere and scholarly efforts of modern theologians in all three Abrahamic faiths can resemble one another:

The decline of religion in modern society is usually attributed to secular science and anti-religious philosophies, and thus science and philosophy are blamed. It is more honest to consider religion itself the cause of its own failure and to blame itself. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant to the age, dry and grim, repressive and soulless. When creed entirely takes the place of faith, when rituals take the place of worship, when habit takes the place of love; when the glory of the past casts a veil over the crises of the present, when faith, instead of being a flowing spring, becomes a heirloom; when religion speaks entirely in the language of authority without being the voice of compassion, the message of religion becomes meaningless.[11]

• Shabestari in a Greek Cloak, a Personal Recollection

I would like to conclude this piece with a personal recollection of Shabestari. This recollection, however, is more subjective than objective, meaning that rather than recounting something external, it tells of a special event that occurred within. About eighteen years ago, for an internal publication called Habab (Bubble), published by the student organization of the Academic Jihad at the Faculty of Theology of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, I interviewed Shabestari in Mashhad. The subject of the interview was “Humanity’s Expectation of Religion,” which was a hot topic at the time. The conversation was recorded on a cassette tape and is still available only in that form. At the end of the conversation, Shabestari said something that for me took on the character of a revelatory event (a revelatory event in precisely the sense of revelation that Shabestari, quoting Ibn Arabi, cites in Faith and Freedom, i.e., revelation as a wholly other event—which may or may not be a linguistic event—that has a swift but lasting effect on a person and opens up the walls of their existence).[12]

Shabestari’s words, which I quote from memory but are so etched in my mind that they very likely come close to a verbatim rendering, were these: “Life is living itself, not a destination or a purpose or goal outside of it or opposed to it that one must reach.” It was as if, in that moment, Shabestari had become a Socrates who, not in the cloak, turban, and robe of the Shiite clerics but in a Greek himation, was sitting before me in the square of Athens and speaking, and I was one of those youths for the corruption of whose minds Socrates was later put on trial. Shabestari’s existential, serene, and contemplative tone, as if he had lived these words, and also his sweet Azeri accent, settled in me in such a way that it was as if time stopped for a moment, something of the timeless emerged within me, and then the tick-tock of the clock resumed. But what exactly did Shabestari say? Was he criticizing the mystical “annihilation in God” (fanāʾ fi-llāh)? Did he want to offer a life-affirming interpretation of religion? Did he want to reject a religious view that sacrifices this world for the hereafter? It could have been all of these and none of them. Whatever interpretation this sentence may have, or even if it were, hypothetically, meaningless, for reasons that are not clear to me, it took on the character of a revelatory event for me and has remained so over the years.

For Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, I wish from the Court of the Nameless One a long life, as vibrant and flowing as this, through His grace and generosity.

.

---

.

[1] In this piece, I do not address unsympathetic explanations of the project of religious intellectualism, such as those that consider religious intellectualism a “new obscurantism” or a “desperate” attempt to preserve the residue of religion in the modern world, as these lie outside the scope of my discussion. For a review of such explanations, one may refer to the works of Aramesh Doustdar and Mohammad Reza Nikfar.

[2]  “Although the Enlightenment is usually portrayed as hostile to religion, it is more accurate to see it as critically directed against various (arguably contingent) features of religion, such as superstition, dogmatism, fanaticism, and supernaturalism. Indeed, the effort to discern and advocate a religion purged of such features—a ‘rational’ or ‘natural’ religion—is more characteristic of the Enlightenment than opposition to religion as such.” William Bristow, “Enlightenment.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/enlightenment/.

[3]  See: Soroush Dabbagh, Religious Intellectualism and Metallic Verjuice, Mehrnameh, no. 9, year 1, March 2011.

[4] Debra Nails, “Socrates.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2017. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/socrates/.

[5]  Some scholars of Socrates have claimed that Socrates only feigns ignorance in an ironic, dissimulating manner so as to make no positive claims himself, to draw his interlocutor into conversation, and then to critique the positive assertions of the interlocutor. For a critique of this view and a defense of the position that Socrates does not feign ignorance but fundamentally does not consider himself a knower and is merely eager to learn, even though the answers do not satisfy him, see the second chapter of this work:

Nicholas D. Smith, and Thomas C. Brickhouse. The Philosophy of Socrates. Boulder/Oxford: Westview, 2000.

[6]  For an account of the importance of Socrates’s religious belief in his philosophical work, see:

Mark L. Mcpherran, “Socratic Religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, edited by Donald R. Morrison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, Pp. 111–37.

[7]  Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Flying in the Clouds of Not Knowing, interview with Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari on religious faith, Kiyan, July/August 1993, no. 52, pp. 10-17.

[8]  Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, “For me, faith finds meaning in ‘constant seeking’,” Madreseh, no. 6, July 2007, p. 61.

[9]  Mahmoud Sadri, a sociologist of religion, has interpreted this approach of Shabestari and other religious reformists as a “sacral defense of secularism.” See:

Mahmoud Sadri, “Sacral Defense of Secularism: The Political Theologies of Soroush, Shabestari, and Kadivar.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 15, no. 2 (2001): 257–70.

[10]  For a scholarly account of Shabestari’s hermeneutics, see this article—a Persian translation of which is sorely needed:

Farzin Vahdat, “Post-Revolutionary Islamic Modernity in Iran: The Intersubjective Hermeneutics of Mohamad Mojtahed Shabestari.” In Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, edited by Suha Taji-Farouki, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, Pp. 193–224.

[11] Abraham Joshua Heschel. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Harper & Row, 1955, P. 3.

[12]  See: Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Faith and Freedom, Tehran: Tarh-e No, Chapter Four (Faith and Prophethood).

.

---

.

Shabestari and the Socratic Way

Yaser Mirdamadi

.

---

.